93-3-WMR Audio on Demand presents the Preston and Steve show podcast.

And now, Preston and Steve's news update with Kathy Romano.

Today is Monday. It is July 9th. Good morning, Kathy.

Good morning. In the news this morning, Ty Authority said the second phase of the operation to rescue a youth soccer team trapped in a flooded cave was underway at 11 a.m. Monday, a day after four of the 12 boys were pulled from the complex after more than two weeks underground. Nine people remain trapped in the cave, including the team's coach. At a news conference, a Thailand's acting governor said all conditions are still as good as they were yesterday.

The boys still have some strength.

They've been working apparently to build the boys' strengths and supplies into them.

But they want to move faster today because they are afraid of the rain.

Authorities have been rushing to extract the boys, ages 11 to 16, and their coach from the cave.

As the annual monsoon bears down on the mountainous region in the far northern Chiang Re province.

Workers have been laboring around the clock to pump water out of the cave and authority said Monday the heavy downpours overnight did not raise water levels inside.

The four boys pulled from the cave Sunday in an urgent and dangerous operation that involved them diving

through the caves dark, tight, and twisting passages were happy and in good health.

The authority said this morning they said they were hungry and they wanted to eat.

Still, the four were undergoing medical checks in a hospital in the capital, but they were not yet

allowed to have close contact with relatives due to fear of infections. Relatives were able to see them through a glass partition, the governor said. When they first announced the story, they said it would take up to two months to get them all out. They've obviously accelerated that. But if you look at the diagram, the cross section of where they are and how they ended up where they are, it's's a, do you know, it's going to take them, it takes them six hours

to get the boys out.

Well, years ago,

I watched a special

about these guys who were diving in these caves down in Florida and they would have to take off their scuba gear and pass it through a small opening. So they could fit their bodies through. could fit their bodies through it.

That's exactly what they have to do at a certain point in this swim.

So they've been trying to, like, train the boys a little bit to do this because this was the last resort was to have them actually dive out. But at this point, I guess they have no other. It's their only way. They're running out of air and there could be more monsoons coming in. Yeah, that's what they're afraid of. One of the divers died. Yes. Yeah. And they're going with the buddy system.

So they're doing two divers per child when they go to take them out.

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